Alcohol appears to be a factor in the death of a 32-year-old Pontiac man who drove a 2005 silver Pontiac Grand Am into Terry Lake Friday afternoon.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office did not release his name Saturday.

The sheriff’s office found the man Friday night after pulling the vehicle out of Terry Lake on its roof after it plunged into the murky, near-freezing waters earlier in the afternoon.

The car drove down North Merrimac Street at about 2:20 p.m. Friday, plowed through a fence, underbrush and along the shore before driving into the lake. Sheriff’s Capt. Timmy Atkins, commander of the Pontiac substation, said the man’s death is being treated as a traffic accident with the information that’s available.

Witness Frankie Alvarado said he tried to jump in the lake right after the Grand Am went in.

“My friend ran in screaming, saying, ‘somebody’s in the lake!’”

When Alvarado ran out of the house, only the car’s trunk was visible above the waterline. He dove into the lake to try to save any passengers, but sank in several feet of muck and was pulled back by first responders.

After the car couldn’t be located in as much as 35 feet of water, an unmanned, remote-controlled robot was sent into the lake, transmitting video and sonar feeds to a screen on shore. After a four-and-a-half hour recovery effort, a team of sheriff’s divers with scuba gear were able to locate the car 80 feet from shore in 15 feet of water and hook it to an Adlers Towing truck parked on the street above.

The mans death is still under investigation, the sheriff’s office said Saturday. Preliminary information showed the car’s registered owner might have lent it to another person, who lent it to someone else. Descriptions of that third person seemed to match the clothing of the man found in the sedan.

“We’re treating it as a traffic accident until we find something (that tells us) differently,” he said.

Sheriff’s deputies were awaiting the arrival of Oakland County Medical Examiner staff on the scene at about 7 p.m. Friday.

The scene was one of a search-and-rescue effort at first, with Waterford Regional Fire Department personnel combing the lake in a red raft, helicopters overhead and the ambulances, patrol cars and fire trucks crowding the street. As time passed, it became a matter of recovery, with no chance of anyone inside the vehicle having survived.

“We’re past that threshold,” Atkins said after the car was in the water for a time.

North Merrimac Street follows a downhill slope before meeting North and South Merrimac streets in a “T” and ending at Terry Lake. In the past, cars have often been found dumped in the lake, located north of Montcalm Street between Cesar E. Chavez and Baldwin.

There was zero visibility in the lake on Friday, a sheriff’s diver said. Divers, who stayed underwater for as long as 30 minutes at a time Friday, wear dry suits with insulated thermal wear underneath, but water still sometimes seeps in.

A crowd of about 20 people stood behind yellow crime scene tape for hours as sheriff’s personnel tried to recover the car, many speculating as to what might have caused the accident.

“All we can do is pray for their soul,” bystander LaVonna Bender said of the submerged car’s occupant.

An autopsy is scheduled for later today by the Oakland County Examiner’s Office.